The Container Store: Love it or Hate it?

I believe it is possible people at the Container Store can be divided into two distinct groups; those whose anxiety is reduced by the storage options, or those whose anxiety is increased by the storage options. I fall into the latter category. There are things in there that I cannot even conceive of what their purpose is. Do I really need boot fillers to keep my boots in shape? Really? Or things to hold my flip flops together? The food storage container section sent me into a panic attack, literally floor to ceiling tupperware. You might ask yourself, Self, why is Nicole in the Container Store if it causes so much distress? And I would say, well, there are certain weird things I like to be hyper-organized about. When I bake cookies, I like for them to be evenly placed in rows on the cooling racks, and when I put them away, I store them in pairs back to back. So they don't feel lonely. I also have been dreaming of reorganizing my spices into those cute little stainless steel containers. Plus all my spices are in a drawer because my cabinets are too tall for me to see the spices on the shelves, and I was forced to use a sharpie marker to write the type of each spice on its lid. So messy.

I spent a productive day at work today making some labels, and then I drove to the Container Store in our BIG SNOWSTORM and picked up my spice canisters. The guy asked if I was using them for "clips." As though I need 36 small containers for paper clips? I threw away some spices that were perhaps from Stah Mahket in Boston (which marks them as no newer than oh, 2001 or so, because it turned into a Shaw's before 2003). I found some weird crystals in my coriander, and discovered I had no less than three jars of allspice. So yeah, now everything's all pretty and nice and four canisters fit across in the drawer perfectly like my drawers had just been waiting for me to turn all obsessive and tidy up the spices.

The best part about this? Now I won't know when my spices expire, so I can feel free to keep the Chinese 5 Spice Powder that I never use for another 10 years, and not feel like I'm ruining my (something you might use Chinese 5 Spice Powder in).